World News - Religious Groups Say Gay-Themed Movies Show Hollywood Out of Touch With America

The Oscar best picture nominees are apparently not playing in Peoria, as the saying goes. In fact, the summer comedy "Wedding Crashers" has done more box-office business than all five of them combined. Two of the films have gay story lines, and some Christian conservatives say it's another example of how out of touch Hollywood is with mainstream America. "Brokeback Mountain," the movie about male ranch hands who become star-crossed lovers, was nominated for eight Oscars. "Capote," a movie about a gay author, was nominated for five. And "Transamerica," in which the lead character undergoes a sex change, was nominated for two. Gay activists say it's a landmark year — that these films will heighten their visibility in mainstream America. ... http://abcnews.go.com

A former U.S. government official is due to plead guilty in a federal bid-rigging probe, the first conviction in an investigation of Iraq reconstruction contracts. Robert J. Stein, a former comptroller for the disbanded Coalition Provisional Authority, will enter the plea tomorrow before Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, according to a posted schedule of court proceedings. Stein is accused of conspiring to funnel business to Philip H. Bloom, an American contractor. Charges against Bloom were unsealed in November. Stein's attorney, Rita Bosworth, an assistant federal public defender, declined to comment. Special Inspector General Stuart Bowen, whose office oversees the spending of almost $30 billion in federal funds, is investigating the financial management of the provisional authority. He reported early last year that the group lacked proper accounting controls for spending about $8.8 billion in Iraqi revenue, including oil-export money....http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aH68D_J3DWNQ&refer=home

German astrophysicists have concluded a space body located in the outer reaches of the solar system is 435 miles (700 kilometers) larger than Pluto, the smallest planet. Their research puts more pressure on the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to classify the object as the 10th planet in our solar system."UB313 is decidedly larger than Pluto," said University of Bonn Professor Frank Bertoldi, whose team's findings will be published in Thursday's journal Nature. The object, tentatively named 2003 UB313, is an icy body that lies beyond the planet Neptune.2003 UB313 was first photographed in October 2003 by astronomers at the California Institute of Technology's Palomar Observatory, north of San Diego. Astronomers announced last summer that it was large enough to be a planet and was likely much larger than Pluto. (Full story)...http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/02/01/tenth.planet/index.html?section=cnn_world

Coastal villages hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami are being cleared under the guise of safety to make way for tourist development, according to a damning report by relief agencies. Presented to the United Nations today, the report highlights discrimination, land grabbing and violence against tsunami survivors in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Maldives and Indonesia. It said governments in those countries "have stood by or been complicit as land has been grabbed and coastal communities pushed aside in favour of commercial interests". Article continuesThe report, Tsunami Response - a Human Rights Assessment, studied 95 towns and villages hit by the disaster and found extensive evidence of forced relocation.In Andhrah Pradesh, India, residents were moved 2km inland from their original village so a new tourist resort could be built....http://www.guardian.co.uk/tsunami/story/0,,1699907,00.html

Iran's president lashed out Wednesday at the United States and vowed to resist the pressure of "bully countries" as European nations circulated a draft resolution urging that Tehran be brought before the U.N. Security Council for its nuclear activities. In a speech to thousands of supporters hours after President Bush's State of the Union address, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad derided the United States as a "hollow superpower" that is "tainted with the blood of nations" and said Tehran would continue its nuclear program. "Nuclear energy is our right, and we will resist until this right is fully realized," Ahmadinejad told the crowd in the southern Iran city of Bushehr, the site of Iran's only nuclear power plant....http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1565887&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

The U.S. and Israel are preparing to attack Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, according to U.S. and European intelligence sources. The U.S. and EU are exerting maximum diplomatic and psychological pressure on Iran to prevent it from enriching uranium in spite of its legal right to do so. Tehran remains defiant, but may yet compromise by shipping uranium to Russia for enrichment. President George Bush claims Iran’s limited but growing nuclear program poses “a grave threat to the security of the world.” What he really means is that Iran could one day challenge Israel’s Mideast nuclear monopoly. Today, Iran’s handful of inaccurate, 1,200-km range Shahab-3 missiles can barely reach Israel, and have only non-nuclear conventional warheads. Many of Israel’s estimated 200 nuclear warheads are targeted on Iran, including new, nuclear-armed, U.S.-supplied Tomahawk land-attack missiles on its Dolphin-class submarines in the Indian Ocean. ...http://torontosun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2006/01/28/1416265.html